Warrior
Warriors are melee fighters highly trained in the arts of weaponry. They are strong and quick on the battlefield. As such they can deal large amounts of damage; they are also capable of withstanding large amounts of damage to protect other party members. Warrior abilities depend on rage generation. This is different to all but one melee class, which is the druid; specifically a druid in bear form. Rage is generated through damage being dealt to and by the warrior and is capped at 100. Warriors have several talents capable of aiding rage generation. Warriors can change between three combat stances: Battle Stance, Defensive Stance and Berserker Stance. Many abilities have a stance requirement. However, stances give the class a fluid play style allowing the player a variety of responses to any given PvE or PvP situation. Warriors can wear any type of armor; plate armour becomes available at level 40. They are able to use shields and can wield any weapon with the exception of wands and relics. The primary warrior attributes are strength and stamina. Agility is also useful while levelling as critical strike rating on gear is rare until later levels. Warrior-oriented gear found towards end-game provides a wider range of attributes. Gear oriented specifically to damage dealing warriors may include critical strike rating, armor penetration or haste. Gear oriented to warrior tanks usually includes some combination of defense rating, block value, block rating, dodge rating or parry rating. Hit rating or expertise rating are also commonly found on gear and can be useful for warriors performing either role. It can be difficult to find rings or cloaks with the relevant attributes. As such warriors may improvise; for example, damage dealing warriors may seek "rogue" items that contain agility and attack power in place of elusive items containing strength. Background As long as war is waged on Azeroth, there will be men and women who fight those wars. The warrior is no mere sword-swinger; they are skilled combatants, combining strength of arm, knowledge of weaponry and practiced maneuvers to slice or bludgeon their foes into little red bits. The warrior is the most versatile of the combat classes, and they supplement their fighting prowess with the ability to rally their allies and spur them to victory, but not only can they rally their allies into victory; they can themselves charge into the heart of the battle, take several lives and live to tell the tale. All races fight, and all races boast many warriors in their ranks. Warriors are common among dwarves, Forsaken, humans, and orcs, but are less so among the other races. Masters of swords, spears, and weapons of all kinds, warriors share a common way of life on Azeroth. Using their abilities to deal pain and cause bloodshed, warriors are deadly adversaries and welcome friends in violent times (which seem to be all the time in recent decades).World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 54, 88 Warriors have existed in every race, from the murlocs to the tauren. Anyone willing to take up arms to defend their people can be classed as a warrior. A knight is the warrior elite among humans. Notable warriors * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * }} Races The warrior class can be played by the following races: Until the Cataclysm expansion comes out, blood elf players are the only race that cannot be warriors. Blood elf warriors are a standard class for blood elves in the RPG. Some blood elves become warriors (or scouts or hunters) — especially those seeking to be spell breakers, demon hunters, and rangers.Monster Guide, 65 Upon the release of Cataclysm, warriors will be the first non-hero class to be available to all races. Racial advantages *Humans: Increased expertise with swords and maces, two very popular warrior weapons. Perception passively gives the ability to detect stealthed units, which can be useful for those in PvP situations. Humans also gain the "racial PvP trinket" – Every Man for Himself – effectively freeing up a trinket slot which warriors might find more useful equipping the alternative PvP trinket which heals. *Dwarves: Stoneform blocks poison and bleed damage, and increases armor by 10%. Both of these can be very useful in PvE fights. The addition Frost resistance is always useful. Increased expertise with maces provides additional threat generation when using them. Though warriors will not primarily be using guns as their main weapon, they can be useful for a pull, and Gun Specialization helps with this category. Lastly, warriors are notorious for their high repair bills. Treasure Finding can help alleviate some of this payment, though it is minimal at best. *Gnomes: Escape Artist can be very useful, primarily in PvP situations, but also in PvE situations. Warriors being the prototypical tank often have to lead mobs and bosses away from the healers and ranged fighters, thus making Escape Artist very useful. Gnomes also benefit from increased Arcane resistance, which is always useful. Because of their small size, gnome warriors are useful in PvP environments, posing a difficulty to target. Inexperienced or careless opponents can be quickly hit by Hamstring, Thunder Clap, and Sunder Armor before they have any idea as to what happened. *Night elves: Quickness adds an extra layer of survivability to night elf warriors. The enhanced nature resistance is always nice. Shadowmeld provides an interesting element to night elves, who can stealth to avoid mob detection (more useful for solo play). In addition, in PvP settings, Shadowmeld can be devastating. Stealth, Charge, Hamstring, Thunder Clap, etc., and Ta-da! You just became a rogue in heavy armor! An additional bonus to Shadowmeld is the ability to temporarily drop threat in combat, and possibly even save your life (if you're the last person standing). *Draenei: Gift of the Naaru reduces downtime for warriors who are soloing, and helps conserve the mana of the group. The extra shadow resistance is always welcomed. Heroic Presence can help Off tanks or the Main tank perform better, depending on what role you may be fulfilling. For a DPS warrior, Heroic Presence will also reduce the amount of gear you (and your party/raid) need to dedicate to reaching hit caps. *Orcs: Axe Specialization increases expertise by 5 when wielding an axe. This is equal to 41 expertise rating, and reduces player's chance to be dodged/parried by 1.25%. Hardiness reduces stun duration, which can save a warrior in PvP settings, or save their group in PvE settings. Blood Fury increases either spell power or attack power, (depending on class) and scales with the players level. The formula for scaling attack power is (level*4)+2. The spell power formula is (Level*2)+3. This grants 322 AP or 163 spell power at level 80. *Trolls: Berserking increases attack speed by 20% for 10 seconds, useful for all warriors and particularly DPS warriors. Regeneration can help keep you alive during PvP fights, or boss battles, and the increased healing can reduced down time for soloing players. The increased damage against beasts can be useful, since beasts are located almost everywhere in the world. Da Voodoo Shuffle reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 15% as well, and the less time you spend walking to something then the more time you spend hitting it. *Undead: The increased shadow resistance is always useful, as is Cannibalize, which can reduce down time while soloing, and save your healer's mana. The increased Underwater Breathing is also useful, especially when soloing, where a warrior might not have access to an alchemist or warlock. Will of the Forsaken is one of the best racials in game, and can be the difference between life and death in both PvP and PvE settings. *Tauren: War Stomp is a useful form of crowd control. Endurance provides tauren with extra health, meaning tauren warriors can have the highest possible HP of any warrior tank. The additional nature resistance is always a plus. When Cataclysm goes live, worgen, goblins, and blood elves will be able to be warriors, giving every race in the game access to warriors. The racial abilities of Goblins and Worgen may change between now and Cata's release, so it is presently unclear how their racials will help them as warriors. While the chance to resist spell damage will undoubtedly be useful for both tank and DPS Blood Elf warriors, it is unclear at this point how the Arcane Torrent ability will work for warriors. Rage By default, a warrior's rage bar is empty. Warriors can gain rage by being struck in combat, dealing damage, drinking rage potions, or using certain abilities. Most of their abilities require a certain amount of rage in order to be activated - this makes rage the warrior's equivalent of mana. When a warrior exits combat, any left-over rage slowly decays until the bar returns to empty. The rate at which rage decays can be controlled through talents. A warrior's rage bar will drop to 0 immediately if they switch their stance. At level 20, the passive ability Stance Mastery allows them to retain 10 rage through a stance change, and the Tactical Mastery talent increases this by 5 rage per rank up to a maximum of 25 rage. Warriors need to be in combat or use a rage-generating ability to generate rage. The longer the battle, the more rage a warrior can accumulate. This often leads the warrior to the strategy of "filling up" their rage bar on a weaker foe before moving on to a more powerful enemy. A warrior with a full rage bar can quickly unload a large amount of damage. Stances The warrior has different stances for different situations. Which stance to use will also be determined by the warrior's talents. *Battle Stance: The standard starting stance for all warriors. A balance of offensive and defensive abilities (-20% Threat Generated) and also increases Armor Penetration by 10%. *Defensive Stance: As it suggests, more defensive oriented and fewer offensive damaging moves. Best used when playing in the main tank role (-10% Damage Received, -5% Damage Inflicted, +45% Threat Generated). *Berserker Stance: All out attack with little regard to the warrior's own health. Best used when somebody else is tanking and you need full-on DPS (+3% Crit, +5% Damage Received, -20% threat Generated). Some warrior abilities are not available based on which stance you are in, so choose wisely! Remember that your rage is reduced to 10 whenever switching stances unless you have Tactical Mastery. Abilities The warrior has various abilities, which are typically limited to certain stances. *In Defensive Stance, the warrior can use abilities such as Revenge and Taunt. These abilities are useful for keeping aggro. *In Battle Stance, the warrior can use a balanced array of abilities. Mocking Blow temporarily redirects threat to the warrior, while Overpower and Retaliation are useful for dealing damage. Some abilities usable in Defensive and Berserker Stances are also usable in Battle Stance. *In Berserker Stance, the warrior is focused on maximizing damage potential with abilities such as Berserker Rage and Recklessness. How stats affect the warrior (Original can be seen at WoW: World of Warriors) Normal stats Mitigation and avoidance stats DPS/ Threat boosters Talents Warrior talents are split into three trees: arms, fury, and protection. Arms *Specialties: Strong bleeding skills, high burst damage with a two handed weapon. Able to execute at any time with . Can reduce healing on enemies with . *Strengths: High rage gain ( ) and rage efficiency skills ( ). Access to . *Weaknesses: At a disadvantage on fights that require constant movement due to the cast time on Slam. Must be played with skill and a fast reaction time to successfully compete with other damage dealers. The arms tree consists of abilities which focus on slow two-handed burst coupled with heavy bleeding damage to better effect. The arms talent tree is capped by the ability, which when activated, whirlwinds every second for 6 seconds and causes the warrior to become unstoppable, unless killed, for the duration. Due to almost every arms skill being based on weapon damage, such as , Overpower, and Mortal Strike, slow two-handed weapons are favored by almost every arms warrior to maximize effect. Bleeding skills are enhanced as well with the talent and allows Rend to open up opportunities to use Overpower regardless of whether the the target dodged your attacks. Fury *Specialties: Powerful sustained damage and can regenerate with and . Can passively reduce healing on enemies with . Able to wield two 2 handed-weapons with . *Strengths: Powerful sustained damage with dual wielding and capable of high burst damage with and Bloodthirst. *Weaknesses: More fragile than the other specs, taking in more damage with and relying on two weapons to perform at best, forsaking the use of a shield save for highly situational times. The fury tree bolsters the use of dual wielding (but does not limit the warrior in any way), to dish out the highest damage that the warrior is capable of. Critical strikes allow the fury warrior to , while the attacks they use most have a chance of proccing Bloodsurge, throwing in high burst damage with their already high sustained damage. While the cost to uphold this kind of damage taxes on rage heavily, dual wielding solves the problem. With the final talent, Titan's Grip, the warrior is able to dual wield two 2-hand weapons, greatly increasing rage gain in bursts, allowing the warrior the needed rage. In the past, going too deep in the fury tree was undesired for PvP due to its lack of the healing debuff, but as of patch 3.0.0, the fury tree gained Furious Attacks, which applies the needed healing debuff. Protection *Specialties: Access to many stuns / / . THE tank spec proficient at both AoE tanking ( ) and singular tanking. *Strengths: All-new powerful damage that was unheard of before Patch 3.0.0, making the shield not just a defensive tool, but a powerful offensive one as well. Able to take very high amounts of damage and dishing high amounts back. *Weaknesses: Technically rage-starved if not being hit, though speccing deep in protection allows you to make your hits crit more often, still allowing you to burst damage without rage ( ). No healing debuff. Damage output very limited when not the focus of enemy attacks, due to key abilities dependent fully or partially on blocking (i.e. , Sword and Board.) Tanking has been redefined by Blizzard, and so the protection tree likely got the biggest change (for the better) in comparison to the other trees. The protection tree features the traditional one-handed weapon + shield combination with talents to improve its use. It is likely that one would think the overall damage is lower due to not using a "powerful two-hander" or "dual-wielding two weapons". But when facing a protection warrior, they need to consider the shield as well. With it protection warriors could absolutely crush anyone foolish enough to attack him/her in melee, and use it to harass and silence casters. Protection warriors now scale with attack power more so than they did in the past, causing them to do much more damage. The protection tree boosts overall survivability, but also offense with the kind of tools that prot warriors use, namely the one handed weapon and shield. And with that new offense comes higher aggro buildup, making them threat machines. Pre Patch 3.0.0, protection warriors were almost never considered for PvP due to their lack of damage, utility against players, and lack of everything that PvP stood for, but now they return with a new style. Still lacking a healing debuff, protection warriors now focus on stunning, crippling and harassing with their new high mobility talent, . Blizzard's talent calculator can be found here.http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warrior/talents.html Wrath of the Lich King changes Spells Battle Shout and Commanding Shout will affect the raid, not just the party. Talents *Titan's Grip is a new fury talent and allows warriors to wield a two-hand weapon in one hand, thereby allowing two-handed dual wielding. *Protection warriors have a new spell called Shockwave allowing them to damage and stun all the enemies in front of them. *Bladestorm is a new arms talent whirlwinding 4 enemies in range every 1 second for 6 seconds. Protection Blizzard improved the protection spec so that it is more viable outside of tanking by increasing damage, with improvements to all damaging abilities, including Concussion Blow. Shield Slam will also be available to all warriors now. Cataclysm changes General preview (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed. (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target. (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in and shares a cooldown with , but the and talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land. Changes to Abilities and Mechanics In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec. * will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as , , and (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot. * , , and possibly will work more like the death knight's ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown. * will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets. * Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to players' health than the current game. So to make the debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically under-represented specs that use other mechanics. * will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off. New Talents and Talent Changes * The talent in the Fury tree will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce the threat generated by 50/100%. * The and talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design in the future. We will keep the talent, but it will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons. * As a Fury talent, will increase the Rage generated by shouts. * While we like how plays, we recognize some warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're planning to try out a talent called that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons. * Several talents that reduce the Rage cost of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those abilities instead. * The new Arms talent called will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10 seconds. * Another new Arms talent called will make the ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary depending on the distance travelled. * , a Fury talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage. Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses ;Arms #Melee Damage #Armor Penetration #Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage. ;Fury #Melee Damage #Melee Haste #Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration. ;Protection #Damage Reduction #Vengeance #Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher. ;Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking. We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues. }} Q&A Q&A with Ghostcrawler Are you talking about Arms vs. Fury? That's not that hard. Arms can have a talent to let them generate more rage with a two-hander or require less rage for their attacks. Are you talking about 2H Fury vs. 1H Fury? The Single-Minded Fury talent could literally say "Your one-handed weapons do damage as if they were two-handed weapons." The talent gives us a dial and we can tune it up or down for whatever we need. It's much easier to make dual-wielding one-handers and dual-wielding two-handers do equitable damage than it is to make dual-wielding one-handers and using a single two-hander do equitable damage, if that makes sense. I understand the appeal of threat management from a logical sense, and your point about it being engaging to everyone is compelling, but in application we find that it's one of those things that a lot of players just don't find fun. The UI doesn't do a great job of explaining threat, and even if we could build a UI to portray it in a more exciting way (which to be fair, we probably could) it's still a pretty intangible concept compared to damage and healing so I'm not sure it would feel great even then. Many DPS players don't like the mechanic that there's this higher level of damage they could achieve if only they weren't constantly being throttled by this one dude up in front. It often ends up feeling not like the group is overcoming a challenge together, but that the dude in front needs to get his act together. It just makes tanks feel weak. When the raid dies because the boss hammered the tank, then that feels cooperative because it's the raid vs. the boss. When the raid wipes because the warlock got aggro, then it feels like it's the tank vs. the warlock (or maybe the raid vs. the warlock or the raid vs. the tank). We always see a lot of negative feedback from tanks when they feel like they can't hold aggro. To be sure some of that is relative when the warrior sees the paladin generate more threat, but it's also a pretty constant source of friction for tanks when they feel like they don't have the tools they need for the job. You can write that off as casuals who just want free epics, but I think we see "we can't generate enough threat" feedback more than we see "please nerf this boss; he's too hard" feedback. Really, we're talking about relative degrees though. No warrior tank should be able to Thunder Clap and then go get a beer because they're going to then maintain aggro no matter what. In the situations where that happens today I think it's because of overtuned abilities like Tricks or Misdirect (or sometimes tank abilities themselves). Perhaps put more succinctly, a lot of tank players just seem to find the survival game more fun than the threat game. I know that's slightly off topic, but I respect Vontre's opinions and wanted to go into a little more detail. I'm sure we'll end up saying similar things several times this week, but if it helps, imagine that every number in the game either doubles or gets divided by half at random. In other words, you don't know how much damage or even how much crit a (theoretical, since we're curtting it) Poleaxe spec talent would provide you anymore. You don't know whether cutting it is a buff or a nerf. Since you aren't armed with that information, all you can really provide is whether the chance to get an extra swing is more fun than a talent that just increases your damage. I can understand some of the confusion. When we do patches like 3.3 or even 3.3.3 then it makes sense to view everything through the lens of the current status quo. This isn't one of those patches. You are gaining more levels. Stats are changing. Many things are changing. Don't assume that numbers that we don't strictly call out will stay at all the same. In fact, you can probably assume the opposite. :) Mechanics probably will stay the same unless specified otherwise. For example, you don't need to go as far as to say "Who knows if warriors will even use axes in Cataclysm?" They almost certainly will. But speculating on whether axe spec or sword spec would cause more damage in Cataclysm is fraught with risk. Inner Rage isn't supposed to feel kiss / curse. It's supposed to feel like a limit break or similar video game analogy. When I get to 100 rage, I go into overdrive mode and cause even more damage. Rather than hitting max rage being a problem (because I'm wasting resources I could be gaining) it's something fun instead. We put in some of that extra explanation because we don't want warriors to feel like the right way to play is to do nothing until they have 100 rage and then start having fun. It's supposed to feel like getting a string of crits or eating a big hit or something translate into higher damage for a short time. No, the whole point is to get to use the faster one-handed weapons. The talent just needs to boost the damage so that it feels competitive with Titan's Grip. }} See also * Warrior twinking guide for details on making a warrior twink. * Warrior instance grouping guide for tips in Instances. Notes *In the Warcraft RPG, warrior and fighter were separate classes. Warrior was an NPC class, while fighter was a core class.Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 54 In the World of Warcraft RPG, the old warrior class was replaced with the soldier class, while fighter was replaced with a new warrior class for gameplay purposes. World of Warcraft RPG Conversion Document, 1 *Warriors have the most widely available choices in permanent weapons, as most are designed (through use or through lore) as melee weapons, which is the warrior's forte. The only one that was never available to warriors was Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian. References External links *Tanking Tips Tankingtips.com is a great resource for information on warrior tanking. *TankSpot Tankspot.com is pretty much "the" website for warrior tanking information and resources. *Prot Warrior Tanking 100 A basic guide to tanking at early levels. *Warrior Guides For advanced warrior topics (although some parts are outdated) it:Guerriero pl: Category:Warriors Category:WoW classes Category:Core classes Category:NPC classes Category:World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game Category:Monster Guide Category:Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game